


Far From Home and All Alone

by AlreadyThere



Series: Far From Home and Finding Caleb Keel [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Harry Potter Next Generation, Mystery, Post - Deathly Hallows, Second War with Voldemort, Time Travel, Time Turner, Unconventional Families
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-22
Updated: 2014-04-29
Packaged: 2018-01-20 08:37:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1503920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlreadyThere/pseuds/AlreadyThere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teddy Lupin, Auror, was given the simple mission of watching over a teenaged girl for a single afternoon. Nothing was supposed to happen.  Nothing could happen.  And yet, somehow, through fate, chance or his own stupidity though, he ended up years in the past, in the midst of the war against Voldemort.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"You have all done a fantastic job so far, but our final mission is far from over."

I stand up on my toes a bit to see over the other aurors. Our Head of Department, Harry Potter, was briefing all of the aurors in our office about the next stage of our current mission.

"The the leaders of the terrorist group who call themselves Grindlewald's Heirs have been imprisoned, but that does not mean we have taken down their entire operation. If anything, the ones remaining are more dangerous because of their lack of solid leadership. The remaining members will have little concern for whether or not their acts will help further their goals. They will be highly impulsive and unpredictable."

Maybe I should grow a few more inches. My pants would look pretty stupid but at least I could see over this crowd of people. Being fresh out of training, the other aurors send me to the back of the room during these awkward "let's just meet in the middle of the cubicles" meetings and give me the worst assignments after Harry finally tells us what our objectives are. Not that I'm complaining too much. I can become a team leader myself some day if I only work hard and drop a few names to a few choice individuals…

But I digress. Harry has finally finished his speech about how the battle for eradicating these Gridlewald loving imbeciles and has moved on to assigning what each team needs to accomplish. I pick my backpack off the floor and quickly rush over to my own team when I hear Harry's voice once again over the crowd of aurors.

"Lupin!" He yells, pointing to me. "I have a special assignment for you. See me in my office."

I internally groan. Everybody knows that you have to listen to Harry's words carefully. If he tells you he has a "different assignment", it means that you get to do some kind of exciting, top secret operation. If he tells you he has a "special assignment", it means you have to go undercover as a sewage cleaner.

Unless maybe, Harry wants to make it look like he's not favoring me in front of the other aurors. Maybe this is actually a reward for that unpleasant Leaky Caldron assignment last week.

See, Harry Potter is not only my boss but my godfather. A lot of people just assume that because of that I get all of the good assignments, but that's just usually not true. Harry tries really hard to treat me just like the others and even goes as far as making it look like I get more lame assignments than everyone else. He wants to make sure everyone know he doesn't let his personal feelings get in the way of his job.

Of course, if you spend enough time with Harry Potter, you'll notice that he lets his personal feelings get in the way all the time.

"This is a ridiculous assignment," I tell Harry bluntly the second he finishes explaining it. He wipes his hand across his forehead and pushes the folder towards me.

"Look Teddy, I know you deserve a better assignment than this, especially after that debacle at the Leaky Caldron, which, by the way, was not approved by me."

I open the folder and look at the description. I cannot believe he actually made a folder for this excuse of an assignment.

"Harry, you're basically telling me to go take your daughter shopping! Do you really think this is the best use of anyone's time and energy?"

"Protection detail, Teddy! She wants to go out in the open where those Grindlewald's Heirs can find her. I've made her stay inside for most of her summer vacation so far, and if I don't let her out soon she'll just leave without permission and get herself killed!"

I sigh and take the folder, flipping through the few pages. "Is she at home?"

"No. She's actually in Ron's office doing her summer homework."

I nod and get up out of my chair. "I assume Lily is resisting this?"

"That's an understatement," Harry sighs. "Look, I know neither of you really want to do this and you both think I'm being pretty paranoid, but I promise I'll convince Thomson to give you better assignments if you do this for me. At least here you don't have to transform into a ditzy bimbo of a waitress."

"Who says I didn't like being Bambi the blonde bus girl!" I ask as I leave for Ron Weasly's office.

Ron's office is a lot smaller than Harry's, but no where near as small as some of the other offices at the ministry. There is a large locked chest on one wall and a chalkboard hastily covered with a sheet. Under it he probably has a bunch of notes and diagrams he does not want people casually looking at walking past his office, but not strictly confidential. In the back, he has a desk covered in papers, pictures of his two kids and a pair of flip flop adorned feet.

Lily looks up from the copy of Teen Witch Weekly covering her face. I have no idea know why she reads it. The cover alone gives me a headache with all those quickly moving faces and bright flashy colors. Without a word she stands up and places the magazine in her bright purple purse. She approaches me and gives me a reproachful look; if I did not know her I would have laughed at such a small person trying to looking so formidable.

"Harry's given me the day off," I tell her. "Do you want to go shopping?"

Lily smiles and rolls her eyes. "I cannot believe this. I'm fifteen! When my dad was fifteen he got to escape from school and fly to the Ministry on gigantic death horses-"

"Theastrals, you mean?"

Lily shakes her head and laughs. "Just something James likes to call them…"

She trails off as the laughter and joy flees her freckled face. "You want to go to that obnoxious muggle coffee chain with the twenty galleon lattes?" I ask, knowing that Lily likes hanging out in muggle London on occasion.

"Yes." She says quickly, the smile returning to her face as she waltzes out of the room. "I need to get some new muggle clothes without my mom around. I mean, she gets muggle clothes enough to blend in and all, but whenever I shop with her she suggests the stupidest outfits. I'm always like, 'No mum, that looks stupid,' and she says 'You can't wear what you picked out, you'll look like a hooker'. I don't know what she classifies as a hooker, but I swear I don't dress as slutty as some of the other girls."

We leave the Ministry and continue down the streets of London, Lily's short red hair bobbing at my shoulder and her mouth blabbing about how she's been trapped at home all summer. I glance around to make sure no one is looking and gesture to a nearby phone booth for us to apparate to where Lily's favorite stores are.

Harry still made me angry for giving me such a boring, useless assignment, but at least I got to spend time with Lily. The Potter kids think of me as kind of an older brother to them, and as far as I'm concerned those three are the best little siblings in the world. Harry grew up without a family. I think that's why he lets me borrow his on occasion.

"-Al is so lucky. He's of age, so Mum and Dad can't make him do crap like this. He's been going out like every night with his friends from his select Quidditch team after practice. He come home practically hammered every night and Mum and Dad barely notice," she blabs as we walk into the coffee shop. She pulls out a bright pink wallet and approaches the front of the store. "I'd like a vanilla latte with soy, and he'd like, what do you want Teddy?"

"Do they have Earl Gray?"

"Not in latte form," She says with a smile as I open my wallet. "He'd like and Earl Gray boring tea. Put your wallet away Teddy, this is all Dad's money. The least he can do is buy you a stupid tea for wasting your valuable time babysitting me."

"It's on the job. I'll get reimbursed."

"Please don't tell me your tea is where our taxpayer money is going," Lily grabs our drinks and walks to a little table with sugar and milk on it. I pick up one of the pitchers and uncap my tea when out of the corner of my eye I notice a man shifting his weight back and forth in the corner and glancing in our direction every few seconds. I lifted the tea to my mouth as I quickly took a mental catalogue of what he wore. Baseball cap, nice dress shirt and bow tie, a large belt buckle with a money sign plastered across it and a pair of running shoes. No muggle would wear something so ridiculous. I sip some of my tea as I study him further, until an overwhelming sense of disgust fills my mouth. This is not like any Earl Gray tea I've ever tasted. I glance over to see Lily examining a jar of cocoa powder and sprinkling it in her drink.

"Let me see that," I say, grabbing the jar and simultaneously tipping her drink off the table and towards the trash can. "Oh no!" I gasp, pulling her away from the hot liquid. I grab a napkin, slip my wand from my sleeve into my hand, and feign wiping up the mess while actually performing a poison detecting spell on the liquid. There is some kind of magical substance in Lily's spilled latte, though it could be as harmless as a pimple remover. Something tells me it's a bit more sinister though.

"Oh, I'm so sorry Lily! And you didn't even drink any, I assume?"

"No, not a sip. I'm going to get another."

"Later maybe. Let's go shopping a little first," I say, practically pulling her out the door.

"What's going on?" Lily asks me as she tries to break free of my grasp. I let go and notice one of my superiors Todd Thompson standing a little ways off in a nondescript suit and tie.

"I just wanted to come over and tell you that I really love your suit," I tell him. He stands up and faces me conversationally.

"Thank you. Your outfit looks nice too, but your hair is just not doing it for me. Neither yours nor your sister Lainey's. I'd suggest giving her something more mature."

"I'll keep that in mind." I pull her into the store next-door and lead her to a dressing room. Inside the dressing room, I glance in the mirror and quickly turn my currently dark brown hair a few shades lighter. I don't need to use my wand; I'm a metamorphmagus, meaning I can change my appearance at will. I quickly bleach the red out of Lily's hair and give her blue eyes. I study her face quickly and make myself look like I could be one of her brothers.

"Hold on to the edge," I say, adding a few inches to her tiny frame and a few years to her young face. Perfect. She could pass off as a person of age now, not someone who is asked at restaurants if she wants a kid's menu.

"Your alias is Lainey Grey. I'm Tim Grey. We're brother and sister. I took off work today to spend time with you."

"What's going on?"

"Grindlewald's Heirs," I whisper so quietly she barely hears. "Let's get out of here." I grab my wand and her arm tightly, spin around and BAM, the feeling of colliding with a brick wall rushes across my chest.

"Damn. Anti-Apparation charms. We're screwed."

The curtain to the dressing room falls on the floor. Standing there is the oddly dressed man and the barista. "Yes. Yes you are," The second man says as he reaches for Lily. "Any funny business and the girl dies."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lily meets a new friend, while Teddy begins to feel the effects of the mysterious poison.

The two men apperate us to a small dark shack. "Lumos" The first man mutters. There are at least ten prisoners locked up in here. Todd Thompson and the rest of his team are tied up in one corner. The other corner is filled with a group of scared looking wizards in white robes. A young woman among them catches my eye.

Her bright blue eyes meet mine as she swipes a lock of strawberry blond hair out of her face. She might be the most beautiful women in the world. I may be a bit biased though. I've been madly in love with her for about seven or eight years and we are planning to get married in about a month. She doesn't look at all well right now though. Her natural beauty is eclipsed by sunken eyes, chapped lips and stringy hair. She turns her head up and looks into my eyes. I slowly wink twice. She nods at me and quickly turns away.

"Victorie is over there." I breathe into Lily's ear. She quickly glances towards where my fiancee is tied up and the then towards the floor.

"Even though you pathetic Aurors tried to stop us and imprison our leaders, Grindlewald's Heirs has once again prevailed," The man with the baseball cap says. "We have taken these Unspeakeables and their weapons of mass destruction! Bring forth Victorie Weasley and Samuel Phillips, inventors of a dangerous new poison invented to kill enemies of the Ministry. We have spilled the poison into the cup of your precious Aurours!" The man pulled a clear, corked flask filled with a gross brown substance out of his pocket.

"Ha! That?" Victoire laughed. "That's a failed lycanthropy cure. A whole goblet full gave our testers light headaches and disyness. Not what they needed near the full moon." The baseball caped man zaps an unknown jinx in her direction. Lily grabs my arms instinctively, a reminder to stay back. She knows how badly I want to beat that guy to a pulp and how that would jeopardize our cover.

"Your lies won't save that man over there."

Victoire shrugs, earning her another spell. "If you care so little about him, maybe I should practice my favorite spells on him," the baseball capped man says as he grabs my collar. "CRUCIO!" he yells.

I've been under the Crucioutus Curse before, but under close supervision for short periods of time during training. Then, an Auror took me into a small room and slowly built up my tolerance to about thirty seconds over the course of a few hours. Now, I am sitting in a tiny damp shed with a bunch of dark wizards who didn't believe in breaks for inspirational pep talks. The pain feels like just that; pure and unadulterated pain, throbbing and piercing pain, starting in my heart and pulsing through my arms and legs. My body would soon explode, implode or maybe even both at once. The shack blurs and shakes. I am in a shack, right? Not in the deepest pits of hell, or inside the scariest corners of my dreams.

It lifts. For a moment, it doesn't matter that I am kidnapped with my fiancee and Lily in a dirty little shack.

"I'll do it longer next time, Weasley. Bring forth Tina Jones, inventor of the long period time turner."

A middle aged brunette women is forcibly brought to the middle of the room. The barista pulls a small pendent on a silver chain out of his pocket. Tina Jones's eyes widen.

"You don't realize the power you have there." She gasps. "I bet you don't even know what time it'll send you to!"

"Oh, we know when we'll go," The baseball caped man says gleefully. "It's set at nineteen forty right now."

Tina Jones squints at the device "But it's not. It's set to send you almost sixty years later, in nineteen-"

"Quiet," The barista says, cutting her off with a silencing charm. "Heirs, take our prisoners to the clearing."

A few men and women lurk from out of the shadows and grab onto groups of prisoners. The baseball capped man grabs Lily and I.

With a loud pop, we find ourselves in a clearing surrounded by trees. One of the 'Heirs' walks over to a nearby tree and carves a circle onto it. She incloses it with a triangle and spits it in half.

"The Great Gellert Grindlewald's sign!" She shouts. The barista nods and hangs the time turner around his neck. The Baseball capped man drags Lily and I to the center next to him.

"My associate and I will travel to the time of Gellert Grindlewald, learn from his great wisdom and, mere days before his defeat by Albus Dumbledore, transport him here to begin his second reign."

I roll my eyes. Grindlewald might have been evil, but he knew better than to come to the future with a bunch of crazed lunatics.

"For the Greater Good!" The barista yelled.

"For the Greater Good!" The rest of the dark wizards replied. I cannot stand this crap anymore. I lean towards the barista, grab the time turner in my mouth, and pull it off his neck, holding Lily's arm tightly the whole time. Before anyone can react I reach into the baseball capped man's pants and pull my wand out.

"Accio 'ack'ack!" I yell, the words muffled by the device still held between my teeth, grabbing the pack in midair. The barista reaches for the chain dangling out my mouth. I turn my head quickly, but not quickly enough; he grabs it and pulls, but I clench down on it hard and it stays in my mouth. I thrust my head into the air in a fast and forceful motion, so strong that the man lets go of the chain.

I might not even have noticed that the world was spinning away from me if not for Lily's screams.

"Where is everyone?"

I look around. The dark wizards are gone, but so are Victoire and the other Unspeakables. It felt as if I went through a portkey, and yet we were in the same place.

Except...It was not the same place. We are still about a few yards from the clearing, but everything just looked a bit different. I spit the time turner into my hand and throw it over my neck. Of course. The time turner.

"Can you let go of me?" Lily finally asks. I look down and notice her hand had become red from me clutching her wrist so tight.

"Sorry Lily," I say half heartedly as I walk to the tree the dark wizards had inscribed Grindlewald's sign on. The symbol is no longer there.

"Looks like Tina Jones's invention worked" I say. "I think we time traveled"

Lily's eyes widen. "Forward or backward?" She askes timidly.

"Backwards. That witch inscribed the sign pretty deep. It would have left some kind of scaring even years later.."

Just as I say that, I hear a pair of footsteps in the clearing.

"Let's leave!" Lily moans.

"No. I want to see when we are."

Lily shakes her head frantically, her short and unatrualy blond hair swimming in front of her face as I grab her wrist again and pull her towards the clearing.

"Teddy Lupin, let me go!"

"Shh... Teddy Lupin might not exist yet."

"I hope he does! I hope we just went to yesterday or last month! I can deal with that!"

In the clearing, a ragged looking man stoops over a small pile of wood, igniting it with his wand as we approach. I would guess he is in his forties or so, but from this distance it is hard to tell.

"Hey!" I yell. The man quickly spins around and draws his wand. Before I can put up my hands in surrender he casts a shield charm. I get a good look of him, finally. Nondescript brown eyes, gray streaked brown hair and a ton of ugly scars sit upon an oddly familiar face.

"Hey! I'm not trying to kill you! I just want to ask a quick question!"

The man releases the shield charm, but does not lower his wand. I quickly let go of Lily again so he would not think I was kidnapping her or anything.

"What's the date?" I ask.

"The date?" he questions, confused. "It's Thursday. What's around your neck?"

"Why are you so nosy? You have anymore details, like month and year specifics?"

"It's September Eighteenth, 1997. Why is the date so important?"

I barely heard the last part. Lily gasped a and shrinks up a bit. Going to the height of Voldemort's reign was not what Harry had in mind when he told me to keep his daughter safe. Actually, that was the last thing Harry had in mind. As a matter of fact, I bet if Harry was here Death Eaters would be the least of my problems.

"Did you need to be somewhere by now?" He asks, bewildered by Lily's response.

"No. She's just a bit excitable, with the Death Eaters and Voldem-er, You-Know-Who running around."

The man did not buy that. Instead, he walks over to me and grabs the device around my neck. "What kind of device is this?" he asks in shock.

"None of your concern." I say, pulling it away.

"How did you get past my protection charms?" He asks me an annoyed voice. "Nobody's broken past my anti-apparation, anti-portkey and muggle repelling spells in years."

"Guess we just kind of wandered in," I shrug, pulling Lily away.

"That dial had numbers around. What do they mean? You aren't some kind of time travelers, are you? Because you're obviously stupid one to show up in a middle of war."

Damn, we had to come across the smartest dude in the forest. One who thinks he's the shit apparently.

"That flash of light over there looked nothing like a portkey, and I've cast anti apparition spells around the surrounding thee square miles. You two do not look like you've been traveling on foot that long."

Man, this jerk is annoying. I guess I should have listened to Lily. "Fine. I'm a time traveler. Since I don't want to bother you with my time traveling antics, I'll leave you here to sit in the middle of the forest. I would tell you not to tell anyone about me, but for some reason I think no one would believe you if you did. Goodbye."

"Now wait a minute!" The man says. "I don't know what it's like when you live, but we're in the midst of a war. Do either of you have any defense training?"

"I'm an Auror." I reply tentatively. "And her dad's a bit paranoid. She knows-"

Suddenly, everything seems to blur in front of my eyes. I grab the nearby tree to keep myself from falling.

"We'll be fine," I gasp as I clutch the tree again. I wonder if I am time traveling again. Everything seems to spin before my eyes. Had the forest been so dark a moment ago?

I feel as if a giant weight had risen from me as I stumble and fall onto the forest floor.

"He's vegetarian, he won't eat that. More for me, I always say. Don't worry, I think he's got some peanut butter in that gigantic backpack go his."

"Gigantic?"

"He put an undetectable extension charm on it. He's got a sleeping bag in there, a deluxe potions kit, a few small children…"

The man snorts as Lily lists off my bag's content. I can smell some kind of meat, sausages possibly, cooking over a campfire nearby. The man and Lily seemed to be disturbingly well acquainted by now. Knowing that girl, she had already told him our whole life stories. I open my eyes slightly to see that it is pitch black in the forest now except for the campfire.

"You up, Timmy?" Lily turns and asks me with a smile. "I introduced us as Lainey and Tim, like before."

"Kinda," I mutter as I try to sit up. "How long was I out?"

"You don't remember? You woke up right after you fainted, but then laid down to rest and went straight to sleep. Neither of us could remember if we were supposed to wake you up when you start fainting all over the place, so we just let you lie there."

"Glad to see you're being cautious."

Lily giggles and scoots closer to me. "So it's almost dinner time. I've taken the liberty of donating some of your sandwich bread and applesauce. I have no idea why you have applesauce in that bag, but it's cinnamon flavored and cinnamon is awesome, so we're eating it. All of it."

"Sure, yeah."

I rack my brain to think of what Victorie said about the potion those Grindlewald'e Heirs had given me. She said it gave the testers light headaches and dizziness when they consumed large quantities, right? So how come when I take a few drops I'm taking an impromptu nap in a pile of leaves and mud?

Unfortunately, it seems like Lily and I are stuck with her new friend for awhile. I tentatively stand up and walk over to the fire where the man is cooking to try and make nice with him.

"I don't think we really got a chance to introduce ourselves," I say, awkwardly sticking out my hand. He places the skillet on the ground and stands up to face me. "You can call me Tim Grey."

"Remus Lupin," the man responds. Before I am even able to react, I hear a loud coughing sound. It was Lily, standing a few feet away and barely able to control her laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How will Teddy react to this shocking revelation? Can our two friends ever find a way home? Will Lily ever shut up? Tune in next week to find out! Or, like, whenever I put up the next chapter. Probably sooner than next week.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Teddy has the second most awkward family dinner of his life, Lily has too much fun for Teddy's sake and the group meets the eccentric, unethical Healer Harley Ray.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heeeerrreee'ssss Chapter Three! * Proceeds to cut through the bathroom door with an ax*

This is not the most awkward family dinner (that honor belongs to the time Grandma tried to reconcile with Great Aunt Narcissa), but it certainly ranks pretty high up.

First of all, there is Lily, or Lainey as I have to call her now, sitting at my side and barely controlling her laughter. I do not know why she thinks this is so funny. This is an emotional moment. She is acting like one of those jackasses who starts laughing at a play when the one of the characters is dying. She's ruining everything!

Well, maybe not everything. The only emotion I'm feeling right now is a vague sense of annoyance. Lily must know me too well. The annoyance is the second thing making this evening awkward. See, most people in this situation would think "Wow. I have a chance to have a real conversation with my dead father, to really find out what kind of man he really was." Since I'm not a normal person, I'm just thinking "Shit. I have to talk to someone I know everything about. Better not mention anything he hasn't told you already, otherwise you'll look like a creep". On the bright side, I think I was conceived a month or two ago, so I won't have worry about messing up my existence. I just hope Remus is not one of those guys who goes on and on about their sex life, because I just do not want to think about that.

"So, Remus." I ask. "Do you have any family?" Lily stuffs her entire piece of bread in her mouth to shut herself up.

"I'm married." He said. "Do you?"

"That's classified." I recite back. "I cannot tell you that."

"I have two brothers." Lily says after she swallowed her bread. I gave her a dirty look. "Oh, come on! That won't hurt anyone!"

"Is he one of them?" Remus asks Lily, figuring he could get a straight answer out of her.

"No, but he's like another brother to me. Not that I need anymore!" Lily laughs. "Were you an only child like Timmy?"

"Yes."

"You know what band from this time I really like? The Weird Sisters. I have a few of their LPs" I interject as an attempt to get off the thin ice we had somehow gotten on.

"Oh, lets talk about Timmy's fascinating record collection, shall we?" Lily replies grumpily, obviously wanting to talk about our personal lives more and mess up our futures.

"Did you hear their 94' album? That's my favorite." I ask Remus.

He smiles. "I worked at Hogwarts when that album came out. There was one group of Hufflepuffs in particular who would get in trouble weekly for interrupting their housemates at night by playing the songs too loud. It was a good distraction for the students, though. Everyone was a bit on edge that year."

"Fascinating. What did you teach?"

"Defense Against the Dark Arts."

"Ah. The cursed job. I hope you didn't leave under too horrible of circumstances."

Remus did not say anything at first. I then remember Harry had told me that Remus had left because he transformed without taking his Wolfsbane and nearly killing some people. Maybe I should have worded my comment differently.

"I quit," He says eventually.

"I would too," Lily replies. "if I had to listen to The Weird Sisters all day."

_Log Entry One_

_"Lainey" and I were fortunate to come across Remus Lupin, a member of the Order of the Phoenix. He may prove to be a valuable ally, as he seems intelligent and competent enough to deal with for a prolonged period of time. Unfortunately, these same traits may lead to him asking a few too many questions._

"What are you writing?"

Remus had come up behind me unexpectedly as I was writing. I look over instinctively to make sure Lily is alright. She Is still sleeping on the sleeping bag I gave her next to the fire.

"You scared me," I state slowly, closing my notebook. "I'm taking notes for when I get back. I'm going to have to write one hell of a report about this."

"Oh. Were you at work when you got into this mess?"

I pause and then nod reluctantly. "I'm an Auror. Not corrupt like it is now though."

"An auror? Have you heard of Nymphadora Tonks? She's one now."

"Tonks?" I ask, pretending to search my mind to remember who she was. "She trained under Mad-Eye Moody, didn't she? I've heard of her, but she doesn't work with us anymore."

"Do you know why?" Remus asks me quietly.

"I come from pretty far in the future," I answer, since I'm pretty sure saying "She's dead," would break protocol and make Remus do something really stupid.

"She's my wife. I was just curious."

"Oh. I'm sure she's fine." I look down at my notebook quickly so he won't be able to tell that I'm lying. "I'll keep first watch. You sleep. Goodnight."

I needed two things. I needed to see a healer, to make sure the failed potion would not kill me. I also needed to get home, because Harry would kill me if anything happened to Lily. The first one I figured Remus could help me with.

"I know a healer," Remus says tentatively. "but he got kicked out of St. Mungo's, so I don't know if you'd want to see him."

"Did he treat undesirables?" I ask excitedly, relishing the opportunity to meet another freedom fighter in action.

"No. He used experimental treatments on patients without their consent."

I'll take what I can get.

The healer lives in southern England by a small sea town. His house is small and painted in a light cream. His front lawn looked well cared for; there is even a small flower bed with mums, marigolds, and various magical herbs. Around the back I can see a tiny greenhouse and bird bath.

Lily, Remus and I walk up the path lined with small grey stepping stones and short little hedges. Remus knocks on the plane pale blue door and a little window opens near the top. A pair of dark brown eyes stare out the hole back at us.

"I am Remus Lupin. I will tell the ministry what you did to Miss Marta Keel if you don't let me in."

"I am Healer Harley Ray. And I saved Miss Keel's life when I gave her that potion, mind you!" Healer Ray, a tall, early thirties man with wild blond hair bulging hazel eyes, responded angrily as he let us in to his tidy little living room. The shelves and tables were covered in lacy dollies, porcelain trinkets and delicate decorative china. "The Ministry doesn't give a hippogriff shit about what you say anyway."

Remus ignored him. "This is Tim and Lainey Grey. Tim has taken some kind of long acting poison he needs the antidote for."

Healer Ray approaches me and pries my left eye open wide with two fingers. "How many hours ago?" He asks.

"Twenty?" I guess.

"Twenty!?" Healer Ray jumps back in shock. "How do you feel?"

"Fine. A little dissy and light headed. I feel off balance too, but that's pretty normal for me."

Healer Ray grabs my arm and pulls me towards a basement door. "Let's take you into my examination room."

Ray leads me into the dark basement, lit only from the soft glow of a potion fire and a few streaks of light from mildew covered window in the corner . With a quick "Lumos" he lights my path and brings me to a small cot where he instructs me to lie down. I cannot see much more than a few feet in front of me. I hear a swish of a wand and the room lights up in a sickening green light. Healer Ray approaches and waves his wand across me a few times.

"I'm going to have to take a blood sample" Healer Ray says as he makes an incision in my arm and extracts a few large droplets. He levitates the red orb into a caldron and begins waving his wand over it.

"I've invented an antidote for slow acting potions," Healer Ray tells me as he examines my blood further. "I'll try a few versions of it on you."

Healer Ray opens up a cabinet and pulls out a few vials. "Where did you dig up that damn werewolf anyway?"

"I needed some help. Remus was kind enough to give it to me." I reply coldly.

"Yeah, Remus can be pretty helpful when he wants to be."

He hands me about four vials and instructed me to drink them as he waves his wand around my chest and neck. As I down the last one a particular look passes across the healer's face.

"What?" I ask as I sit up, slightly concerned.

"You should be dead by now," He responds. "This poison should have killed a normal man six hours ago."

"Are you saying I'm not normal?" I retort.

"Yes," He states. "Do you know why? It might help me synthesis an antidote."

"I'm a Metamrophmagus," I say after a few long moments of consideration. "Don't tell anyone though, not even Remus," I add quickly. No need to give him any more clues to my real identity than Lily probably has.

"That wouldn't have any effect on this poison. It would account for your dizziness though. You Metamorphmagi have no equilibrium, transforming your weight and height at the snap of a finger." To prove his point, he donks me between the eyes, sending my head back to the pillow.

"I'm never this bad," I respond. He considers for a moment.

"Do you have lycanthropy? Is that were you met Remus? Some werewolf mixer?"

"No."

"This poison has moonskin in it. It has some odd effects on werewolves." Healer Ray continues to wave his wand across my blood for a few more moments before turning around in defeat.

"How long do I have then?" I whisper.

"Two days. Two weeks. Two months. There's no way to tell."

I sit in silence. What would happen to Lily if I died? How would she get home? What if I never got home, and everyone who ever had known or loved us never knew what happened? Victorie, Grandma, Harry, Ginny, Al, and even James if he ever wakes up…

No. They will never wonder where we went because Lily at least will get home and tell them. Her family might have already lost one child. No way I'll let that happen again, not as long as I'm still breathing.

"Don't tell Remus and Lainey that I might die soon. I'll tell them soon enough myself."

Healer Ray nodded and handed my another vial. "This is a potion with moonskin and bezor extract. Should slow some of the symptoms, if you're lucky. I usually only use this on the werewolves I treat, but a few drops a day won't kill you. Anymore will though, so be careful."

"Why are you giving me a werewolves' potion?" I ask.

"Because you're body is fighting off this poison like a werewolf would. Out of curiosity, have you ever been scratched by a werewolf, or been bitten by one while it was in human form?"

"My father was one," I blurt out impulsively, covering my mouth quickly as if to shove the words back in my mouth.

"And you're not?" Healer asks, surprised.

"I shouldn't have told you that. Definitely don't tell Remus about that one."

"I don't know…I might have to."

"Don't you have a healer-patient confidentiality agreement or something?"

"Of course not. Didn't Remus tell you how I lost my license?"

"He said you preformed experiments on people, not blabbed about them!"

"Oh. I forgot I did that too. Look, normally I wouldn't tell anyone about your father, but it's just Remus! And, well, he is a werewolf. He'd understand."

"I still can't have him know. He may figure out some things about me I have no desire for him to find out."

Healer Ray considers for a moment. "I wouldn't ask you to normally, but his wife is pregnant and he's terrified his kid is going to be a werewolf like him. You're living proof that lycanthropy isn't hereditary."

"Wait- he actually thinks that? That's his biggest fear right now?" I almost laughed. I guess back here nobody studied werewolves much. The Unspeakables came out years ago to confirm that lycanthropy has little effect on the genome. Now that I think about it though, I dimly remember being part of one of their studies at the age of three or four. Not many people will admit to having werewolves for parents, so with being in the middle of war and the current opinion on werewolves I guess nobody can get any solid medical information.

"He hasn't exactly told me he's worried about it, but some of his questions seem to point in that direction. If you just let me talk to him, then he can stop freaking out."

"No way. Guild him in the direction, fine, but don't use my name or mention you've treated a werewolf's son lately."

"You're limiting my medical abilities!"

"Consider it my dying wish. I deserve that much, don't I?"

Healer Ray opens his mouth to retort, but then shuts it tightly and shakes his head.

"Fine, Mister Grey. You owe me."

"If I live long enough, you can have whatever you want from me."


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Teddy and Remus try to fix the time turner while Lily makes a shocking revelation about her older brother

I slowly walk up the stairs and put a fake smile on my face. Lily is sitting across from Remus, telling him an animated story about a quiditch game.

"So I caught the snitch within three minutes, but didn't tell anyone since I was having so much fun watching Timmy and my one brother arguing over the quaffle regulations. My oldest brother noticed I started sitting on the ground after a few minutes and just sat next to me, but Timmy and the other brother argued for a solid thirty minutes." Lily reluctantly stands up as I appear in front of her.

"You ready to go Lainey?"

"I've only told Remus a portion of the stories I can under regulation. How did you come across these regulations anyway? Do they prepare you for the off chance that this obscure scenario could happen?"

"Honestly I'm just making a few assumptions about what I should do. Making up rules for the people I'm supposed to be protecting is part of my job." I pull some carefully sorted pre-1997 galleons out of my pocket and hand them to Healer Ray. "Thank you for your help. I hope you'll keep up your end."

Remus snorts and shakes his head. "Don't count on it. Oh, and Healer Ray? Tonks considered your offer for about a half a second before remembering healers are supposed to prevent birth defects."

"It's a perfectly safe examination."

Remus roles his eyes "Doubt it." He leaves the room briskly, not even saying goodbye to Healer Ray. Lily and I quickly followed him.

"Was he able to find an antidote?" Remus asks as we leave the house through the idyllic little garden.

"He found out exactly what the poison is and how to stop it." I'm not lying; becoming a werewolf would stabilize the poison. Of course, I've seen what being a werewolf does to people. I work at an organization that makes free Wolfsbane potion for werewolves lacking the skills or resources to make it themselves, and I hear about the prejudice and pain monthly. When I was a teenager, I befriended a girl whose parents threw her out of the house when she was bitten at the age of sixteen. My own grandmother has been known to slip in a few derogatory remarks about my father when she's thinks I'm not paying attention to her. Every single one of them would kill me if I became a werewolf to fight this poison. Not that I would even be able to for another few weeks.

"That's good. What do you plan to do now?" Remus asks.

"Find out how to work this Time Turner. The person who set this thing thought he was going to go to 1940. Mind you, he wasn't very smart, but all the same, it proves that getting this thing to work will be a bit of a challenge."

"If it's going to take a few days, then you can use my house to figure out how to work it. I'll admit it's far from secure, but no one's there right now."

"Why is no one there? Didn't you say you were married? Were is she?" Lily asks.

"Death Eaters found our house the day they took over the ministry. My wife's aunt is a particularly sadistic Death Eater intent on killing her for having a muggle father and, er, marrying me," Remus finishes the last part rather quickly.

"Is that why you were in the middle of a forest?" I ask. "Or do you just like camping alone in the middle of a war."

"You have your secrets, I have mine," Remus retorts.

"Do yours have to do with turning into a four legged ferocious beast once a month?" I ask. "Because Healer McCreepy in there told me all about it."

Remus's eyes widen and visibly recoils, but continues talking uncomfortably. "Yes. That particular forest is not one young wizards or muggles usually venture in. I've been covering the area with muggle repelling charms, anti appertion wards and spells to keep a werewolf from wandering off. Apparently it does little for time travelers,"

"Guess not. Is your house actually overrun by Death Eaters, or do they just know where it is?"

"They haven't come for a visit yet, but they could at any moment," Remus replays, sticking out his arm. "Stay there for the afternoon at least. If you can't find out how to work that thing by nightfall, I'd recommend staying at the Leaky Caldron. I've heard they have the citizens of Hogemeade under a pretty tight watch. They've already instilled a curfew there."

I nod and grab Remus's arm and Lily's shoulder. After a quick but unpleasant apparition, the three of us arrive on a narrow street. Remus silently leads us into a small brown house on the street corner. I glance around. Apparently, no one is here.

"Homium Revelio" I mutter. No one illuminates from the shadows.

Remus slowly opens the door and ushers us inside. I do the same detection spell in the house. It is empty of all living creatures.

Of course, the house is far from empty in general. After a few feet of a front hall, the house leads into a tiny living room. Despite the small size, a couch, an armchair and a coffee table are squished inside. On the mantle, there are a few pictures of who I presume are Remus's parents, some of four teenage boys, arms around each other, around the halls of Hogwarts and a single picture of Remus and a young women with bright bubblegum pink hair. I glance at the last one for an extra moment before turning my head to see the kitchen, a tiny little room with only a sink, stove, pantry and table. To my other side there is another hallway.

"Seems like maybe you didn't have to leave." I state after finding the coast clear.

Remus laughs and shakes his head. "My father-in-law went on the run to avoid the Muggleborn Registration. My wife has been at her mother's house, keeping her mother from going insane. She gets lonely quite easily."

I take a deep breath inwards to keep myself from laughing, but I end up having to disguise the entire thing as a coughing fit. My grandmother literally cannot function without other people around. She did a terrific job raising me my entire childhood, Remus and my mother being dead and all, but when I left for Hogwarts she became a mess. During Christmas break my first year, she almost tried to pull me out to homeschool me. Then she adopted three dogs. They helped keep her company, but she still went to more parties than I did throughout my teenage years, especially when I was at school. I mean, old people parties, but still, that woman had no concept of "me time". I secretly think that her discission to bring Narcissa Malfoy back into her life stemmed from wanting more friends.

"I know people like that. Believe me, I do."

I throw the time turner on the coffee table and look into my backpack. In the far corner I reach over to find my jar of almonds and a roll of parchment and some quills. I put both of those on the table too.

"Do you have clean clothes in there by any chance?" Lily asks me. I shake my head.

"You can borrow something of my wife's, if she left anything." Remus says. "They'd probably be a little big on you though. She likes to be taller."

"Sure."

"Check the dresser in the room at the end of the hall." Lily nods and runs off.

I pick up the time turner and examine it. The center dial is all gold, with two slender hands extruding from the center. I move the first one back and forth a little bit, but then place it back at what must be 1997. I try to move the second one, but it won't budge.

"Is it stuck?" Remus asks.

"I think," I answer, throwing him the time turner. "Don't press the center. It'll send you to who-knows-when."

Remus taps the hand lightly at first, but becomes angry at it after a few seconds and pushes on the tiny appendage with all his strength. While he messes with the time turner, I pop a few almonds and dig through my backpack for my notebook. Instead, I find a moving photograph of Lily, James, Al and I. James had just graduated from Hogwarts and so his family and I went to a nice restaurant in London to celebrate. The six of us spent the night making a fool of ourselves by laughing too loud and drinking too much. One would have thought James had the perfect life. I certainly did.

"It's impossible," Remus states, throwing it back to me.

"Probably for some kind of reason though." I muse, popping one of the almonds into my mouth and studying the time turner. Lily enters the room wearing a truly horrible large jumper and an ancient pair of cutoffs. Her hair drips all over the floor; apparently she had helped herself to the shower.

"Stop dripping! We're guests." I tell her, swishing my wand to remove the moisture from her hair. She turns away in a huff and begins to study some pictures on a corner table.

"I know you won't like me asking this," Remus asks after a long pause. "But I have to know. Is this war still going on in your time?"

I place the time turner on the table and look him straight in the eye. "No. The war ends within my lifetime, but not without great cost."

"So when were you born?"

"For all you know, not for another 100 years." I answer briskly. I continue after a brief pause. "It is better where Lainey and I come from. The Ministry has been purged of laws favoring purebloods. Everyone's treated equally in the eyes of the law. Muggleborns, goblins, house elves, even people like you."

"People don't always treat everyone equally." Lily murmurs from across the room, where she is studying another group of pictures.

"You'll get bigots everywhere, Lainey." I say, brushing her off. "The point is, where we are there's less of them."

"You paint our lives like they're perfect or something!" Lily arguers.

"Compared to life here…" I start, but Lily cuts me off.

"If our lives our so perfect, then why did my brother try to kill himself?"

The three of us are dead silence.

"Things happen, Lainey," I say quietly. "Just because Ja- your brother isn't well, doesn't mean that that our lives our bad."

"I know," Lainey whispers, sitting next to me. Remus looks between us awkwardly.

"Things are better for most people," I insist. "Maybe not for him. But he's more likely to live in our world. People are more likely to help him." Lily nods.

"I could live the rest of my life here and see a thousand people die, but it still wouldn't stop me from remembering opening my brother's door, yelling at him to come to dinner, and seeing him lying on a vomit soaked comforter with dead white skin and an empty vile in his hand, my dad rushing into the room after I started screaming, he not knowing what to do either, just standing there, staring into his son's near blank eyes. At least that's all I've seen. We'll go home, maybe, and my brother will be the only one in St. Mungos, barely anchored to this world."

"Anchored!" I yell, picking up the time turner and shoving it in her face. "This little hand here is an anchor!" I jump up in victory, barely containing my excitement, until a wave of dizziness falls over me again.

"I got to go," I say awkwardly, stumbling over the chair and nearly knocking over a bookcase. I grab onto the wall by the hallway and pull myself to the little bathroom in the hall. I push all my weight onto the faucet and let the water spill onto my hands, hoping desperately that the icy water will wake me up. I cup the water into my hands and splash it onto my face, watching the droplets plop into the sink.

Regaining my balance somewhat as well as my energy, I stumble out into the hallway and glance into a small, almost empty bedroom across the hall. I walk into the room on a whim and look around. A small window, a closet and a few boxes were the only things in it now. With a start, I realize that in another life, a better life maybe, this would have been my room, where I slept and invited my friends to play in and decorated with quiditch posters and pictures of my friends. As a little kid, my mum and dad would have come in and tucked me in every night. I think of Remus, my father, in the other room, not knowing he has less than eight months to live, not knowing that I'll grow up not in this house but at my grandmother's, still wondering if I would be like him, according to Healer Ray, instead of not a werewolf at all but a man who very well might die at the age of 25, months before he was even born of an incurable poison.

Maybe I should have done more with my life.

"Are you alright, Timmy?" Lily asks, finding me standing alone in the room that should have been mine if not for a couple of sadistic Death Eaters.

"Fine," I tell her. "Let's figure out how to get home." I say, pulling her into a sideways hug. "Don't worry about James. The best healers in the country are getting him out of that coma. And then we'll get him help."

"They've already been doing that for five days."

"Have hope, Lily," I whisper so Remus will not hear her name from the other room.

My father is holding the time turner and examining it when we get back into the room. "I think if we just put the short hand by the long hand, we can get home. The long hand is working as an anchor to our own time," I tell him, taking the device and putting it around my neck.

"So you'll be leaving soon?" He asks.

"As soon as we can-"

I break off my sentence and grab onto Lily. Remus tenses up a bit too and pulls out his wand.

"I heard footsteps," I whisper.

"Me too," Remus says.

Suddenly, the front door is blasted open. I pull Lily into the hall and towards the master bedroom. A mirror, a bed, a closet, a large window, not many good places to hide a fifteen year old girl.

"Get under the bed," I whisper, shoving her to the floor and running out.

In the living room, I see Remus dueling a woman with frizzy long black hair and harsh black eyebrows. Bellatrix Lestrange. Oh how I loth her. She is my absolutely least favorite relative, and I'm related to the Malfoys. It doesn't help that she murdered my mother though.

Beside Great Auntie Bella, two other Death Eaters run towards where I am. I send a stunning spell each towards the two of them and run to the small bedroom. Glancing at my reflection in a mirror on the wall, I quickly change my face and build to an entirely new person, a stout black man with a beard. One of them runs into the room and recoils upon seeing me. I stumble towards him, blasting spells left and right. I nearly fall over trying to dodge a spell; I'm not used to this body type at all. I sloppily make it to the bathroom, throwing a body bind curse at him; This one sticks. I glance in the mirror again and make myself a tall, pale and grey eyed man with freckles.

The other male Death Eater unbinds the first and start throwing spells towards me. Remus and Bellatrix are now dueling in the narrow hall as I run out, slipping and almost falling face first on a puddle of water Lily left. He glances over to see the three of us and throws a curse at me. He turns to Bellatrix and sends a stunning spell her way before running to the bedroom. I chase after him and slip in before he slams the door shut. Upon seeing that I have entered, he lifts his wand in confrontation.

"REMUS!" I yell. He immediately lowers his wand upon recognizing my voice and looks at me, confused, as Lily craws out from under the bed.

"You used some kind of transformation spell," He says slowly. "What did Lainey take from your bag last night?"

"Applesauce and bread," I say quickly. "I'm actually a Metamorphmagus. I was trying to confuse them." I throw the time turner over Lily's head and place the two hands together. "Remus, you can't hold those Death Eaters back yourself," I say. "So I'll help you.

"Lainey, get back get to London however you can. Find your dad and tell him everything. Send someone to get Victoire and then send someone back for me. Be strong," Lily opens her mouth to protest, but I shake my head and press on the center of the device. In the bink of an eye, Lily dissolves into the air.

The Death Eaters brake open the door. "There's at least four of them!" one yells.

"Imbeciles! My niece is transforming to confuse you!" Bellatrix yells.

Crap. They caught me. At least, they think they did. I run to the window and throw it open, reaching out for Remus. Bellatrix shoots a flash of green light towards Remus. He does not move. Instead, he braces himself slightly for the blast. Thankfully her aim was off. "AVADA KEDAVERA!" She yells again, but I grab Remus out of the way this time.

"GET OUT!" I yell at him, shoving him towards the window. "I'M TOO FUCKING TIERD TO DEAL WITH MARTYRS TODAY!"

The two of us scramble out the window and onto the lawn. I grab his arm and apparate us to the first place I can think of.

"What were you doing back there?!" I yell. "Were you trying to get yourself killed?!"

Remus looks at me very seriously. "Who are you, really? How far in the future are you from?"

"I can't tell you!" I yell. "I would screw up everything!" I take a step towards him in desperation, but start to stumble. At first I think it's from my new tall body, but I quickly lose control of my self and fall onto the ground, descending into blackness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DUH DUH DUN! What will happen next? Um... nothing. This was the last chapter. Everyone dies.
> 
> KIDDING! That would be mean.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lily returns to the 21st century while Teddy returns home.

"So, he claims he's from the future."

I feel myself lying in a familiar place, but did not open my eyes. The first voice I heard belongs to a young woman, distantly familiar as if I had heard it a million years ago.

"He claims."

This voice is very familiar. It belongs to my grandmother. I suddenly realize I'm here, at her house, the place I grew up in, lying on the couch I had spent many nights reading books or talking to my grandmother on.

"I've been looking through his backpack. Some of the books are copyrighted as late as 2020," Remus says.

"What are they about?" the woman asks.

"Nothing interesting, just a few paperback fiction novels. Unfourtunatly Tim Grey doesn't seem to be into history."

"Why did you bring him here?" my grandmother asks, furious. "Your putting us all in dangure!"

"I'm pretty sure all three of us could take him down." the woman says. "Relax, Mum."

"What was I going to do, leave him to die?"

"Take him somewhere else!" my grandmother answers.

"He came here himself!" Remus hisses. "I had nothing to do with it."

I groggily open my eyes to see Remus standing across from a woman who looked like my grandmother, but with darker hair and less wrinkles. My grandmother held her hands clenched together at her chest, as if at any moment she would clamp them around Remus's neck. Another dark haired woman sits on a chair across from me, fiddling with a delicate necklace around her neck, except instead of my grandmother's shoulder length bob, her hair is pin straight and streaked with platinum blond. She spots that I've woken up and smiles.

"Wotcher. I'm Tonks, Remus's wife. That's my mum, Andromeda," Tonks gestures to the woman about to murder Remus.

"Tim Grey," I introduce myself. I notice the necklace again. A fine silver chain with a tiny heart shaped charm on it. I knew that necklace. A photojournalist from the Daily Prophet arrived at Hogwarts less than an hour after Voldemort's defeat. She walked around the scene of destruction, snapped a few pictures of the battered survivors and walked to the front of the Great Hall, where the dead were placed. Apparently, she noticed a man and woman lying side by side. She snapped their picture and asked a stray student who they were (A guy who used to teach here and one of those Order people, the student might have said). The next edition featured the photograph on the continuation page.

Thirteen years later, a boy at Hogwarts digs through the library's Prophet archives to find the first story printed on The Battle of Hogwarts. Out of curiosity and procrastination, he reads the story and turns to page three when BAM! He sees a picture of his dead parents looking up at him.

I think a lot of people would think me a bit morbid, but I copied the picture and kept it. Studied it even. She wore that very same necklace the night she died. I wonder if Grandma still has it.

"How did you know to come here?" My mother asks me. "Remus says that you led him here."

"I know the family a few houses down," I say, not lying at all. The muggle boy down the street and I played football together in primary school. We just met up for drinks last month.

Remus and Andromeda stop arguing and turn to face us.

"Mum, why don't you get him some tea?" Tonks asks her mother nervously, pulling the little charm back and forth along the chain. "Remus and I can do the interrogating,"

My grandmother leaves in a huff. "You fainted again," Remus tells me.

"No shit." I reply.

"I thought you told me he found an antidote,"

"He found out certain qualities can battle the poison. Unfortunately I don't have those qualities."

"Remus! Dora! Can you help me for a second?" Andromeda asks from the kitchen. The two of them glance at each other and leave for the kitchen.

I try to listen to what they say, but Andromeda locks the door. After about five minutes, Remus and Tonks re-enter, Tonks nervously clenching a mug of tea.

"Oops," she says as I grab the mug; she almost dropped it on my leg.

"So, these qualities," Remus says. "What are they?"

"Lycanthropy," I say after taking a sip of my tea. "it's probably because the poison was intended to be a treatment for werewolves. Unfortunately it failed." I almost drop my tea in shock. I could not believe I just told them that.

"Very interesting. Tim, when did you say you were born?" Tonks asks me, still nervously fiddling with the charm.

"Nineteen ninety-" I stop and look into my tea. "Nineteen ninety-"

"Nineteen ninety-" Remus eggs me on.

"Vertiteserium," I state. "How could you?"

"It was Andromeda." Remus says.

"Why?" I ask, unbelieving. "I trusted you!" I yell to Remus.

"We're in the middle of a war!" Tonks cries. "I want more than anything for it to end soon. Anything you can tell us about the future, any good news! Please tell me you have good news!"

"For you?" I laugh. "I have none of that for you."

"Tim," Remus says slowly. "In your time at Hogwarts, you went to Hogwarts, right?"

I try so hard not to speak, pressing my lips together until my face turns blue, but the poison has weakened me too much. I give Remus the tiniest nod.

"When you we're there, did you ever hear of a student with the last name 'Lupin'?" Remus asks slowly. I hold my head as stiff as a board, stationary as if it was welded to my neck, but after a very long pause I nodded then too. Remus

"Was he a werwolf?" Tonks turns to him in surprise and drops the tiny charm onto her chest. I press my lips together tighter, keeping that tiny little word in my mouth.

"I won't answer any of your questions!" I scream. "You can't make me!"

"Just give me something!" Remus pleads.

"I can't change it!" I yell. "I won't!"

"When were you born, Tim? When will the things you said have happened?"

"NO!"

I bite my lip so hard blood spills onto my l face. I grab a nearby cushion and dig my nails deep into the fluff. Tonks turns to Remus, debating if she should put a stop to this.

"Ninety eight!" I yell. Immediately after I pull the cushion over my mouth and stare at Remus, thinking through the odds of a Metamorphmagus being born the same year his child would be, wondering if by some stretch of the imagination the two could be one and the same. "Please don't ask me anything else," I mumble through the thick pillow.

"Let's not," Remus says slowly, to the surprise of both Tonks and I. "Your mother has a spare bedroom he can stay in, doesn't she?"

Tonks nods and stands up, still looking at the two of us oddly. "I'll go set it up."

Remus and I are alone now. Even though I keep my head low I can tell he stares at me as I dig my nails deeper into the pillow.

Tonks comes back down and shows me to the room. "Tim," She says as she closes the door. "I didn't want to. But at the same time I would have never stopped him."

"I understand,"

"No. You don't. I'm pregnant, you see, and I didn't notice before but Remus is really worried about the baby. He just wants the world to be better for our child." She's gone back to fiddling with the necklace.

"He must really care about you, and your kid too I guess," I tell her.

"He'd do anything for us."

Tonks turns to leave. "Tonks," I say quickly, making her turn to me. "Remus lent my friend Lainey your sweater. I don't think we'll be able to get it back now. I'm sorry."

"Was it the lime green one with the maroon stitching?" She asks.

"Yeah. Like I said, I'm really sorry about it."

Tonk's face turns into a wide grin. "It was a gift from my mum last Christmas. The most hideous thing I've seen in my life and the sole reason she should never shop for me. Can you do me a favor when you get to your time?"

"Yeah?"

"Burn it."

Seems like my sense of what unfashionable clothing deserves is genetic. I return her smile as Tonks leaves the room. I start to feel a little light headed again so I lie down on the bed and stare into the ceiling, turning over my mother's words in my head. So I guess my father would do anything for me, including torturing me, to find out if I'm alright. I really wished I could just tell him I'm not a werewolf, if that's what he's so worried about.

He really was not a bad person. Just one the war had turned desperate.

It's a little after sunset. I hear someone approaching the bed. Thick, heavy footsteps, not walking fast or tripping over the carpet. It must be Remus.

"Tim," he says. I feel to tired to turn to him. All day the weakness has been spreading through my evermore fragile body. "I just wanted to apologize for the things I said and most of all for trying to take advantage of your knowledge of the future."

"I'd do the same thing," I whisper quietly. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Why not."

"Why did you let those Death Eaters try to kill you?"

I hear Remus shift his feet a bit uncomfortably. "I did it because I thought it would be better if I wasn't here. For my child"

"Because you are a werewolf?"

Remus slowly nods.

"Take it from someone whose watched a family wait evey day to see if thier son will live through the night. You're wrong. I don't care what weirdo reasoning you've thought up."

"You sound a bit like someone I know. He said the same thing, but with more screaming and spell throwing."

"Sounds like a pretty nice guy,"

"No, really, he is," Remus insists.

I continue to look out the familiar window. As a kid, I would play hide and seek with my friends in this house, and I knew someone would shove themselves under this very bed to hide. "I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that this might be the last place I see." I say, only almost audibly.

"I really do feel sorry you have to die like this. Far from home and all alone."

"Remus," I whisper quietly. He took a few more steps towrds the bed. I had wanted to say what I was about to since I got here. I cared very little about the consequences of what would happen if I did talk and very much about the consequences of if I didn't. "I am very proud to be your son."

Remus says nothing. I do not hear him move for a few very long moments. Eventually, he lightly puts his hand on my shoulder for a single moment before pulling it away. I hear him turn around and walk out the door, shutting it very quietly behind him.

As his footsteps fade away, my thoughts drift to the poison slowly killing me. Then to James, dying in St. Mungo's, and his parents, who thought they had lost someone so young for the last time over twenty years ago. Then to my own parents, who do not know that their lives dangle on a fragile strand, like the tiny, silver charm on the thin, delicate chain.

As the night progressed I heard voices from below the floorboards. Loud, augmentative voices. I grab my pillow and shove it over my head. Grandma must have invited Aunt Cissy over again.

Wait a minute. That's not Aunt Cissy. That's Grandma arguing with Thompson! What's my boss doing in my house?

Then I remember everything. That I'm stranded in the past, that I'm dying and that I've lived in London since graduation. Still begs the question to what Thompson is doing here. He should be, what, thirteen now? No, older than that. He told me he snuck back and fought in the Battle of Hogwarts.

There's someone else down there too. I could pick out the voices of Mum, Dad, Grandma and Thompson, but there was another voice I did not recognize. The voices quickly subsided. Three pairs of footsteps rush up the stairs to my room.

Remus throws open the door. Thompson and the mysterious man stand behind him.

"Got yourself into quite a predicament, Tim," the mystery man says, putting a particular emphasis on my fake name. He walks into the room and turns on the lights so I can see him properly, though I could not pick any distinguishing features in his plain face. "Almost like the time you ended up in compromising position at that muggle amusement park."

Of course. Polyjuice potion. Only one person knows about that event. Harry Potter, who had to rescue me from that...situation.

"I thought we agreed never to talk of that again," I whisper weakly. Harry smiles and hands me a small vial.

"The healers want to examine you further for more treatment, but this should at least perk you up a little."

"I've been taking a bunch of weird potions. Would this counteract-"

"Lainey tracked down Healer Ray. He's actually helped find your treatment."

"Aw great, now I owe him twice." I murmur, slowly sitting up on the bed. "How long did you wait to come get me?"

"Only a week. We needed to find an antidote and fix the time turner you broke."

"Did Lainey get back alright?"

"She's fine."

I drink the vial of potion and glance between the three men. Already I started to feel a little more awake. "When are we leaving?" I ask after a few moments.

"As soon as you want to." Thompson replies.

"Alright. Let me just thank Andromeda and Tonks for keeping me here."

I push myself out of bed alright, but the moment I try to take a step the world spins around me again and I almost fall flat on my face. Remus quickly grabs my arm and steadies me.

"I'll help you down," He says, grabbing my shoulder to support me. Thompson and Harry leave the room as Remus and I slowly make our way down the stairs.

"Are you going to be okay?" Remus asks me.

"Yeah. I'll be fine," I tell him. Remus stops and lowers his voice barely above a whisper.

"If I'm still around, Tim, can you have someone come get me? Tell me that you got back safely?"

"Yeah. Of course."

It seems like Remus wants to say something else, but he does not. Instead, he quickly looks away as we get to the bottom floor. I turn to Tonks and Andromeda.

"Thanks for keeping me here. Hope I wasn't too much trouble."

"None at all," Tonk replies. "Hope you get better. And remember what I told you about that jumper."

"Burn it."

Tonks and I share a quick smile as Harry slips the Time Turner around our necks and presses the middle button, sending us in a whirlwind back to the twenty first century. I barely have time to register that we arrive before slumping over on the nearby couch.


	6. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus uncover's Tim Grey's secret.

"I really do feel sorry you have to die like this. Far from home and all alone." I tell the young man lying on the bed and watching dusk settling on the horizon. Even though our relationship had been, quite frankly, untrusting, rocky and almost confrontational, I meant it. I could tell he was still pretty young. Twenty five or so. Like so many other men and women these last few years, he did not deserve to die like this. Maybe things would be better if Lainey was still here. She told me they were close. Like brother and sister, though in reality he is simply a very close friend she loved like her own family. He had no family here now. Unless...

"Remus," Tim Gray whispers, not turning to me or raising his voice. I take a few steps forward to hear him more easily. "I am very proud to be your son."

I knew. From the moment he suffocated himself in the pillow to stop talking and forced his nails into his arms until the bled, I knew. A Metamorphmagus, born in the year my child would be, who recognized Tonk's name when I told it to him (though I don't think he knows I noticed). Who else could he be?

Unsure exactly what to do when your grown son from the future is dying, I place my hand on his shoulder, but then quickly pull it away. Maybe that's weird. I don't know. I don't know anyone who's met their child from the future to compare notes with.

I leave the spare bedroom and slowly make my way down the stairs. Tonks is sitting on the couch, flipping through one of Tim's books.

"He has good tastes," She says. "This book is one of my favorites."

I silently sit next to her and do not respond. She slips the book back into his bag and turns to me.

"You were gone for almost two months."

"More like a month and a half."

She does not find this amusing. "Where were you?"

"Well, first I looked for Harry, Ron and Hermione. Then I found them, and almost immediately got re-found by some Death Eaters,"

"For a month and a half?"

"Well, not quite. It took me three days to shake the Death Eaters and get to Grimauld Place," I tell her.

"The point is, you were gone for long time. Do you know how worried I was about you? That you were captured by Death Eaters or...or...worse?"

She can barely finish her sentence. I pull her into my arms as she cries into my shoulder for a long time.

"I don't think I can live without you," She finally tells me quietly.

"You don't have to, Dora," I respond.

Seconds later, the moment was quickly destroyed by Andromeda's thundering footsteps.

"Are you two done searching his bag yet?" She asks.

"No," Tonks tells her. "Speaking of bags, have you seen my suitcase?"

"Why do you need that?" Andromeda asks sharply.

"So I can take my stuff back to my house?"

"Dora, your house has been discovered by Death Eaters. You can't go back there."

"Mum, that's nothing a little Fedelius Charm won't fix." Tonks says with an eye roll.

"It's too dangerous. You two are staying right here! And that's final!" Andromeda yells angrily.

"Mum, you're going to wake up our guest. Shut up. We're not going anywhere."

Andromeda leaves in a huff. After a few moments, Tonks and I erupt in quiet giggles.

"Ahhh...We're being held hostage!" Tonks says. I smile and reach back into the backpack, pulling out some of the contents. A box of cereal bars, cans of mixed nuts, some sugar free gum, some kind of muggle listening device, a box of ink replenishing quills, and a thin manila folder.

"What's this?" I ask. I grab the tab and pull it up, but the tab seems to slip through my fingers. I try again, but the same thing happens. I run my hand over the folder, but it seems to slide right off. Finally, I simply turn the folder upside down, expecting the papers to simply fall out. They do not. Tonks looks at me with pity and eventually tears the folder from my hand.

"Give me that," she says, opening the folder with ease. "It's classified. Not top secret though. Any Aurror can open a folder with this level of security clearance." She glances into the folder and hand it to me. "Looks like some kind of protective custody mission. Is that girl Lainey?"

I look and the picture in the front of the folder. She looks a few years younger in the picture, a close up of her in Gryffindor robes standing in front of the Hogwarts Express. The girl I met might have been sixteen or seventeen, eighteen at the most. The girl in the picture looked around thirteen or fourteen. Although she had brown eyes instead of blue and red hair instead of blond, the picture was unmistakably of Lainey Grey.

Except it was not labeled as such. Below her name, in a familiar script, some had written "Lily L. Potter" I tried to remember where I remembered seeing the handwriting from. Of course. Uncountable reports on redcaps, grindylows and boggarts. Looks like Harry still has his over protective instinct in tact after all these years.

I flip to the next page and read the write up on the mission. Lainey (or Lily) was put in protective custody to avoid the mostly extinct terrorism group "Grindlewald's Heirs". The mission obviously went very wrong, since there were no mentions of time travel in the file.

At the bottom of page, there were two blanks. One Harry had signed, as the Aurror in charge of the mission. The other read "T. R. Lupin" in the same sloppy script I had seen him write his journal in. I guess Tim had chosen a name similar to his own like Laniey, Lily, had.

I placed the folder on the floor and pick up the journal. Inside, he wrote pages and pages of notes on various dark wizards and strategies. Nothing important to me until I filliped to the end, to the log entry he wrote earlier.

Log Entry One

"Lainey" and I were fortunate to come across Remus Lupin, a member of the Order of the Phoenix. He may prove to be a valuable ally, as he seems intelligent and competent enough to deal with for a prolonged period of time. Unfortunately, these same traits may lead to him asking a few too many questions. I know I can trust him though. Her father would want me to trust him. He always did.

I closed the notebook, feeling a little bit guilty for how I treated Harry a month ago again. I wonder how Tim is. If he's still...If he's still alright. I glance over at Tonks to ask her if maybe someone should check on him, but she fell asleep and I did not want to wake her. Instead, I reach back into the pack and happen to pull out a stack of rubber banded pictures. I carefully slip the band off and spread the pictures across the coffee table.

The first one that catches my eye looks to be a very old one. A blue-haired child, maybe five or so, plays with a light haired girl in what I think was the Burrow under a Christmas tree. I flip it over to see it dated for Christmas Eve in 2002. I wonder who why kept this particular picture. The next one I see is a more recent one. A man who looked vaguely like the Tim I knew sat at a picnic table with Lily and two teenagers I assumed to be her brothers. The oldest brother looked to be only a year or two older than Harry was now. I hope Lily's brother survives and gets better. Harry should not have to lose anyone else. Not after Dumbledore, Sirius and Lily and James.

He pretty much told me a month and a half ago he did not want my son to grow up without a father like he did. Little did Harry know this would happen.

Harry was right. I should have trusted him, like Dumbledore told Kingsley and I to. Sometimes I think that man was a seer, the way he seemed to just know everything. Maybe my son would die alone, but he would not live his life like that. I would make sure of that.

I re-stack the pictures and slip them back into the pack before opening the small notebook and pulling out one of Tim's quills. I begin to write in one of the blank pages in his notebook.

The letter is short, but it takes a while to write. I glance at my watch and see that by the time I've chosen the right words to say it's been nearly a half an hour. I slip the notebook back into the bag when two men appear in front of me out of nowhere. Tonks wakes up with a jolt and draws her wand almost simultaneously.

"Who are you?" I ask, pointing my own wand at them. I notice the time turner around their necks but do not lower my wand. One of the men, a plain, middle aged man who seemed to be in charge, stepped forward.

"We're here for Tim Grey," The man says. He turns to Tonks. "You're name is Nymphadora, correct?"

She gives him a cold stare and tightens the grip on her wand. "Just making sure I got to the right place," The man continues. "I have information that Tim Grey would be here. Was this information correct?"

"How did you get in my house?" A loud, angry voice yells from behind me. It's Andromeda.

"You told me where it is," The second man says. He looks a bit more distinctive with his bright blue eyes light brown hair and pointed chin. "In the future."

Andromeda rolls her eyes. "More time travelers. Great." She still does not lower her wand.

"I was just asking your daughter and son-in-law if our information regarding Tim Grey was correct," The first man says slowly.

"Where did you get that information?" Tonks asks sharply. The second man smiles.

"Once again, Andromeda told me. She remembered a young man visiting during the war. Said he went by Tim Grey. We needed to find him. Luckily, we were able to find someone who had information on him."

"Did Lainey get back alright?" I ask the first man. "Tim must be worried about her. They seemed to be very close."

"Lainey got back to London just fine. When we left, she was spending time with her older brothers."

"Brothers? Her eldest brother is alright then?" I ask. The man looks surprised that I knew about this.

"Yes. He's fine."

"Good. Tim and her were so worried about him," I tell the man.

"Speaking of Tim, where is he?" The first man asks again.

"Upstairs, guest bedroom. You known I'm a little surprised the man who sent Tim on this mission did not come to get him."

"Who says he didn't?" The first man asks. I pick the folder off the floor and hand it to him. He looks between the folder and Tonks for a moment before a mischievous smile creeps across his lips.

"You should have mentioned it before," I say to the man I presume is Harry Potter. "Tim is right up here."

I quickly lead the three men up to the guest room and pull the door open. Tim groggily turns around to face us."Got yourself into quite a predicament, Tim," Harry begins "Almost like the time you ended up in compromising position at that muggle amusement park."

"I thought we agreed never to talk of that again," Tim whispers weakly. He asks Harry how Lainey is doing and how safe the antidote really is as he sits up, glancing between the three of us. Already he looks more awake, more alive, more like he will come out of this whole experienced unscathed. I feel like I should probably say something to him, but again I do not know what would be the right thing to say.

"...Let me just thank Andromeda and Tonks for keeping me here," Tim says as he pulls himself out of bed and promptly face plants. I grab his arm moments before he breaks his nose.

"I'll help you down," I tell him, leading him to the staircase and letting Harry and his companion get ahead, something that I am sure does not escape Harry's attention. He knows to turn let us linger behind. I would not be surprised if he suspected that I had found out Tim's true identity. I know I can trust him though. Her father would want me to trust him. He always did.

Her father would want me to trust him. He always did.

He always did.

"Are you going to be okay?" I ask my son eventually.

"Yeah. I'll be fine," He tells me.

He always did.

He always did.

I stop dead in my tracks and remember the wording in his journal. He always did. Past tense. If my son knows Harry, trusts me because Harry always did...

No. No way. Can't think like that, especially after you just decided not to die, Remus. Snap out of it.

"If I'm still around,Tim," I start, wincing internally. "can you have someone come get me? Tell me that you got back safely?"

Tim looks surprised that I asked that. His surprise did not seem to say "Why won't I," like I hoped though. Instead, his face says "I didn't think of that," Maybe I'm thinking too much into the face of a young man who is pumped full of lethal poisons though.

"Yeah. Of course." He says. I wonder if I should say anything else, in light of everything. We do not have much time though, and all I needed to write I put in the letter. I look to the floor and lead him down the stairs.

"Thanks for keeping me here. Hope I wasn't too much trouble." Tim says to Tonks and Andromeda.

"None at all," Tonk replies. Andromeda looks as though she thinks differently, but does not say anything. If only she knew…"Hope you get better. And remember what I told you about that jumper."

"Burn it." Tim says as he smiles at Tonks. Harry slips the time turner around their necks and with the press of a button they disappear into thin air.

"What business is that with the jumper?" Andromeda asks.

"Nothing you need to worry about," Tonks says, her cheeks growing red. "I'm going back to sleep. See you tomorrow," she adds, quickly leaving the room and pulling me with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long update time. I forgot I didn't finish uploading this #distractions.


	7. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Teddy and his family are reunited.

Next thing I know I'm lying in a hospital bed. I open my eyes and glance over at the red headed young man sitting up in the bed beside me.

"Welcome to the party." He says dryly as I sit up.

"James?" I ask groggily.

"The one and only. Looks like we both got ourselves in a pretty bad mess here."

"Least I didn't do it on purpose."

James looks around and uncomfortably plays with his bracelet.

"Sorry," I mumble. "We've all been pretty worried about you."

"Same here. Lily and Al have told me they thought Dad was about to have a freaking heart attack this last week."

"Where is she? Is she alright? What about Victoire?"

"You're the only one we have to worry about. The Unspeakables were rescued, Lily got herself back to London and I'm checking out in an hour or so. I just wanted to wait for you to wake up."

"How long has it been?"

"You got in here around eight last night. It's morning now. They told me you should be discharged pretty soon."

"Great."

I lie back down and turn towards the window, wishing that right now I was asking James to contact my dad to tell him I was alright like I promised instead. I wanted my mom and dad to run in the door and tell me that they were worried about me. Instead, I'm lying here alone staring at the London skyline.

"Teddy!" A voice rings from the hall and rushes into the room. I turn in time to see my fiancée Victoire pull me into her arms. "I leave for five minutes to get breakfast and you go and wake up on me. Totally ruining the moment."

"Love you too, Vic," I say as I pull her close to me and kiss her.

"I'm just going to leave now," James says loudly.

The two of us pull apart. "Did you get out of there okay?"

"Those Heirs people got so freaked out when you attacked them and disappeared, Thompson was able to overcome them and recuse us. We got back to the Ministry and over half the Aurror department embarked on this massive manhunt for you and Lily. It was epic, too bad you missed it."

"Yeah, too bad I missed my own rescue party. Did they find Lily quickly?"

"Yeah. She ran into the street and started shooting birds out of her wand around a bunch of muggles. Overkill I thought, her Trace would have made any magic okay. They had to obliterate them like crazy, but at least she got home quickly. She was great help in finding you."

I thought about that for a second. "Lily's Trace? Why weren't we chased by Death Eaters constantly? We were doing magic around her non-stop?"

"Old Ministery wouldn't have caught the Trace. They put it on you when you arrive at Hogwarts and stand in that little room before the Sorting. That's why home schooled kid's are not arrested. The Ministry just hopes their parents can keep them under control. Anyway, since the spell wasn't put on her yet, they would not have detected it.

"That's good. What's for breakfast?"

"Well, I got two delicious chocolate danishes from the cafe down the street, but since you're sick I assume they're going to make you eat hospital food." She pulls two hot, flaky, chocolate filled pastries.

"I don't care. Give me one," Victoire smiles and hands me the wonderful smelling danish. After the first glorious bite, Lily, now back to her short red hair and stature, walks into the room followed by her older brother Albus.

"You're up!" Lily sequels as she runs over to give me a hug. Al shakes his dark hair out of his eyes and actually gives me a hug too.

"Glad to see you're alright," Al tells me as he lets go and Grandma, Harry and his wife Ginny enter the room.

"Gang's all here," I say with a smile. "Glad you're all so happy to see me."

"Happier than the last time we... met," My grandmother says awkwardly.

"I can't believe you didn't trust me!" I exclaim. "What about me makes me look so villainous?"

"Do we really have to go over this?"

"You gave me Veritaserium! I can't believe you!"

"I was trying to save your mother and the baby, er, you."

I roll my eyes as Ginny and Harry turn to my Grandmother with newfound respect. "It would have taken us a while to find you, Teddy," Harry says. "I'm glad Andromeda told us about a mysterious time traveler who showed up at her house during the war."

"Me too. Otherwise I would have been playing on my own unmarked grave for my entire childhood."

"That's not gruesome," Lily says with disgust.

The eight of us talk for another hour or so until a healer comes by to discharge James. She says that as long as I take it easy for the next few weeks I can be out tomorrow.

"Guess it's desk work for me," I tell Harry as everyone else leaves the room.

"With the report you have to write you're going to need it." He replies. The two of us are alone now. "Remus knew who you were, didn't he?"

"He all but pieced it together. I would have kept my cover if not for that pesky Veritaserum."

"Andromeda told me that she remembers that you fought it. She remembers thinking that if you weren't so sick, they wouldn't have been able to crack you."

"I'd like to think that."

We are silent for a few more moments before I speak up again. "My dad almost threw himself in front of a killing curse when we got into that scuffle with the Death Eaters until I stopped him. He told me later he thought I would be better off without him. I told him he was being stupid and he told me a friend of his said the same thing. He was talking about you, wasn't he?"

"Yes," Harry confessed. "We got into a heated argument and exchanged a few charged words and curses. I'm glad things didn't...didn't end like that."

I thought about how Dad and I argued after he poisoned me, and how if he hadn't come to see me, things would have ended like that for us too.

The warm summer rays beat down on my neck through the trees in the tiny cemetery. I make my way through the battered tombstones until I get to the one that marks where my parents are buried. It's a simple little marker. Not too fancy.

"Hey," I say awkwardly. "I, um, promised I'd tell you how I'm doing when I got back. Here I am."

The light breeze whips my brown hair around my eyes. At the moment I looked more or less "normal", which I honestly don't look like that often. Even when undercover, I chose a different face than my own so no one recognizes me. Earlier today though I had let go of the magic, letting the Tim Grey guise slip from my face, leaving no disguise in it's place. No fancy colors streaking my hair or tinting my eyes. I still had that light, barely pasty, skin and those round eyes that I thought made me look younger than I actually am. I would look like this all the time if I was not a Metamorphmagus.

"I got discharged from the hospital this morning. Eighty percent better. A few weeks of taking it slow and I should be at a hundred percent."

I guess this conversation would be less awkward if my parents weren't dead. They could, you know, actually respond.

"Healer Ray tells me the research done when I was a kid about lycanthropy affecting genetics is wrong. Not totally wrong I guess. Just a little off. It's highly unlikely, probably impossible, that a werewolf would have a child who was a werewolf simply because it's father was one. It turns out though that a few genes slip through the generations though. I should have died hours after taking that potion. It had no effect on werewolves. I guess it hit me somewhere in the middle. Turns out the one thing that you thought would curse me ended up saving my life.

"I also just wanted to thank you for looking out for Lily and me. I mean Lainey. You know, the blond girl who's actually ginger. You really put yourself at risk trusting me and it saved my life. Probably Lily's too, more importantly. Thank you."

I slowly kneel on the ground in front of the tombstone and run my hand over the engraved words before placing my forehead on the top of it. "I just wish you were here to thank in person."

By the time I stand up, I had no idea how long I had been kneeling there. It could have been seconds, minuets or as much as a quarter of an hour. I didn't care. A dead leaf sticks to my pants as I stand up. I pick it off and crumble it in my hands, letting the fragments scatter across the cemetery in the wind. I had never seen anything more like life before. So fragile. So wasted.

I did not know my place in life anymore. Before last week I would have said my life's goal was to be an Aurror, move up the ranks, prove myself to the world. Now, I was starting to think I was meant for something more. Something substantial, not to just be thrown away. It's a new world now, and it's up to us, James, Al, Lily, Victoire, me and everyone else of our generation, to figure out what kind of world it is. We're done meandering around, waiting for another great evil. I've seen the old world. Time to make this one different.

I turn around and apparite to a small cafe in Diagon Alley. The quick transition from the empty, peaceful cemetery to the crowded hussle of the shoppers come as a shock. I stumble back and grab the side of a building. "Can I help you?" The young host asks, giving me an odd look.

"Um, yeah. Someone's meeting me here. They'll be two of us."

The host gives me another odd glance as he pulls out two menus.

"Hey Teddy," Victoire calls out as she arrives, pulling me into a quick kiss. We sit down at the table and start looking through the menus.

"Did you do any wedding planning while I was gone?" I ask as I study the selection of soups.

"I finished planning the rehearsal dinner. Just need something old and we're practically done," She tells me.

"Got that covered," I say, putting down the menu and pulling my mum's delicate silver necklace out of my pocket to hand it to her. "I asked Grandma about it. She says my dad gave it to my mum when they got married. She's pretty sure it belonged to my other grandmother before that."

Victoire stares at the tiny charm in awe. "What happened to her?"

"Er, from what I gathered from third hand sources, she was a muggle who freaked out and couldn't take the whole wizarding thing anymore. She left when my dad was a teenager," I explain. Then I glance at the necklace and realize the fate of it's last two owner's marriages. "You know what? I'm sure Mrs. Weasley or Fluer have something you can use. That thing's probably cursed."

Victoire squints at the necklace and waves her wand over it. Nothing happens. "Doesn't look like it," she says.

"Still, it might be bad luck."

Victoire shrugs and slings the silver chain over her neck. "I'm not superstitious. And even if I was, they say the third time's a charm, right? Maybe this necklace can bring something good to us."

Back at my flat, I grabbed my battered backpack and took out my notes in order to try and write a report for this mess. I threw the notebook on the couch and went in the kitchen to get some tea.

When I returned, I opened the notebook and flipped to the end where I had scribbled that one log entry, which I remembered not useful in the least. I glanced at the entry to see if I had written anything remotely helpful when I glanced on the next page. Someone had written a short note in it, probably Remus. I think I remembered him saying he was messing with my stuff. I fold the notebook over and lie on the couch to read the message.

_Tim Grey, or whatever your real name is,_

_I'm writing this to you right after you basically told me that you're my son. I've suspected for the last few hours, after you confessed to being a Metamorphmagus, showed up to this address and told us you were born the same year my child will be. I don't think your mother suspects anything, at least not yet. I won't tell her your secret unless she guesses too._

_I hope that you understand that every horrible thing I've done since we've met, like slipping you Veriteserum and trying to get myself killed, was to protect you. All my life I've been degraded and hated and shown so little kindness because of something I could not control. That's why I've broken your mother's heart so many times and tried to distance myself from you. I'll try to do better, but if I ever hurt your mother or you again because of my "self sacrificial heroics", know that I am truly sorry for any pain I cause. The two of you have every right to insist that what ever absurd notion wanders into my head is wrong._

_Whatever happens to you or me in the coming years, know that the man I met this week can handle any of it. I am very proud to be your father._

_Sincerely,_

_Remus Lupin._


End file.
